Wednesday, June 30, 2010

I'm rarely impressed with advertising but yesterday while looking a subway ad for Target that shared how their designers are giving back to the community, for example, Isabel Toledo is donating 5% of proceeds from her line to The Museum of El Barrio, a 6 train completely bedecked throughout its 10-car length in advertising for Target pulled up.

Celebrating the launch of the East Harlem Target store at 116th St. and FDR Drive, which opens on July 25th, Target spent $250,000 on the marketing campaign. Each train on the car features different motifs on the Target theme and prominently displays the 116th Street stop. At the 116th Street train stop all the wall ad space is bedecked in Target ads.

Pretty cool if you ask me, now if only they would help clean that subway line's noxious smells!

From one of the most accomplished writers to emerge from Latin America, No Place for Heroes is a darkly comic novel about a mother and son who return to Buenos Aires in search of her former lover, whom she met during Argentina’s Dirty War.

During Argentina’s “Dirty War” of the late ’70s and early ’80s, Lorenza and Ramon, two passionate militants opposing Videla’s dictatorship, met and fell in love. Now, Lorenza and her son, Mateo, have come to Buenos Aires to find Ramon, Mateo’s father. Holed up in the same hotel room, mother and son share a common goal, yet are worlds apart on how they perceive it.

For Lorenza, who came of age in the political ferment of the ’60s, it is intertwined with her past ideological and emotional anchors (or were they illusions?), while her postmodernist son, a child of the ’90s who couldn’t care less about politics or ideology, is looking for his actual father—not the idea of a father, but the Ramon of flesh and blood.

Anything goes as this volatile pair battle it out: hilarious misunderstandings, unsettling cruelty, and even a temptation to murder. In the end, they begin to come to a more truthful understanding of each other and their human condition.

No Place for Heroes is an addition to that long tradition of the eternal odd couple—in works ranging from Waiting for Godot to Kiss of the Spider Woman—waiting for their fortunes to change, written by one of the most talented and internationally celebrated authors at work today.

“One of the finest novels written in recent memory.” —José Saramago < Whoa!

Monday, June 28, 2010

This book caught my eye for a couple of reasons, first of my mother's name is Lucy, my bakground is in anthropology and lastly, the author is half Mexican. I look forward to reading it!

Laurence Gonzales’s electrifying adventure opens in the jungles of the Congo. Jenny Lowe, a primatologist studying chimpanzees—the bonobos—is running for her life.

A civil war has exploded and Jenny is trapped in its crosshairs . . . She runs to the camp of a fellow primatologist.

The rebels have already been there.

Everyone is dead except a young girl, the daughter of Jenny’s brutally murdered fellow scientist—and competitor.

Jenny and the child flee, Jenny grabbing the notebooks of the primatologist who’s been killed. She brings the girl to Chicago to await the discovery of her relatives. The girl is fifteen and lovely—her name is Lucy.

Realizing that the child has no living relatives, Jenny begins to care for her as her own. When she reads the notebooks written by Lucy’s father, she discovers that the adorable, lovely, magical Lucy is the result of an experiment.

She is part human, part ape—a hybrid human being . . .

Laurence Gonzales’s novel grabs you from its opening pages and you stay with it, mesmerized by the shy but fierce, wonderfully winning Lucy.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Bewitched by books? Ghosthunter fan? Love hanging out in quiet places, surrounded by old musty tomes and ladies shushing you? Then you might enjoy watching the live cam at the Willard Library and see if you get a glimpse of 'Grey Lady Ghost?'

I am seeing more and more people begin to start to delete 'friends' from Facebook and unplug from the web, which leads me to the thought that numbers (followers, friends, etc.,) can be very misleading when it comes to real connections.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Friday, June 11, 2010

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post-apocalyptic Africa.

In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue.

Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself.

At the "20 Simple Ways to Reach Latinos Panel," I finally had a chance to meet literary agent and Voces blogger, Adriana Dominguez, and founding member of Las Comadres, Maria Ferrer.

One of the most insightful panels was the "Using Google's Tools to Gain Better Market Intelligence."

In addition, I got a few books from the editor buzz panel; Juliet by Anne Fortier and The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee as well as a signed copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I was thrilled to see so many people talking about Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue thoughout the conference and at the Book Blogger Convention.

Once again, I was able to see Gary Vaynerchuk speak (passionately as always) about his upcoming book and what he thinks will be the next big thing in terms of cultural shifts.

Although BEA was smaller and more condensed this year, I have to admit that I was glad at the opportunity to go and connect with so many industry folks, writers, and bloggers.

Who is Literanista?

Valerie M. Russo Evans

New York, NY, United States

A native New Yorker born to Puerto Rican & Sicilian parents in Spanish Harlem's El Barrio, Literanista is a Social Media Strategist, a published poet/writer, has worked at Hachette Book Group, Aol, Thomson Reuters and scouts the web for multicultural literary news, tech trends, innovation, working on her debut novel & about a million other things.

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Disclosure

* All content on Literanista is strictly based on my sole personal opinion & beliefs & not those of my employer. I sometimes receive advance release copies of books, media, and products for promotion purposes.